Sakura-Con Wrap-up

Sakura-Con is obviously long over. I was going to post a con report right after getting home; but as usual, life got in the way. Or more precisely, illness got in the way -- a sore throat and a 100 degree temperature as soon as I got back. I dealt with the fever by spending a day home from work -- and incidently working over eight hours that day. (Hey, it wasn't physical work, so technically it was relaxing.)

Anyway, Sakura-Con. At 10,000 attendees (about), it was much bigger than Anime Vegas or Anime LA, and much smaller than Anime Expo. There was no shortage of stuff to do, and everything was on the whole neatly organized. (This was the first time I'd seen one video room devoted entirely to subtitled videos, another to dubbed videos, another to movies, and a fourth to anime music videos.)

The attempts at organization fell down sometimes, however, and one of the most egregious examples was on the last day. Japanese manga creators Kohta Hirano and Yasuhiro Nightow were offering autographs/sketches. A sign advised that prospective recipients of sketches would be given lottery tickets to determine who would be able to go into the undisclosed locations and obtain the sketches. It also said that there were no lineups before 2 pm. (You might see where this is going.) Staffers, alas, advised fans to, yes, line up before 2; and issued them lottery tickets. Shortly before 2, however, a rather loud and rude staffer chewed out the line occupants for lining up before 2 pm; and made them give back their tickets! (You can imagine the calm with which a couple hundred tired, low-blood-sugar-afflicted, hyped up young people took this information.) The atmosphere got sufficiently threatening that security guards or police officers were called. Worst of all, when the new tickets were being brought out for distribution, someone yelled, "Go! go!" The fans began stampeding toward the ticket bowls; and I, observing from the sidelines, began to get that sick feeling of watching a train wreck in motion. Fortunately, a loud-voiced burly staffer stopped the mayhem before anyone was (physically) hurt.

Below is video of the more orderly aftermath, with the still-peeved fans being chosen by lottery for sketches. Alas, Amy was not one of the chosen; but she high-fived the thirty who got sketches.




One of the delights of the convention was meeting veteran Japanese voice actress Sumi Shimamoto, pictured below. Ms. Shimamoto has done numerous voices for Hayao Miyazaki movies, including Clarice, the heroine of his first full-length movie, Castle of Cagliostro; and his (and anime's) most famous female character, Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind. I also captured some video of Ms. Shimamoto's panel.





I asked her if she had noticed any changes in voice actor styles over the years she had worked. She replied that the cadence of acting had speeded up; that more voice directors were using overlapping dialogue, and background/foreground voices; and that some casting directors were hiring voice actresses more for their looks than their ability.

The final video I'll post from the con is the intro to the dub voice directors panel, with Johnathan Klein and Taliesin Jaffe: